Shoplifting Laws in Maryland: Penalties, PBJ, and Civil Demands

Maryland shoplifting laws are not found under a separate shoplifting statute; the state prosecutes retail theft under its general theft law, and the penalty depends almost entirely on the value of what was taken. Take something worth less than $100 and you face up to 90 days in jail. Cross $1,500 and the charge becomes a felony that can carry years in prison.¹ On top of the criminal case, the store can pursue you civilly for damages, and a conviction can reach into firearm rights, immigration status, and your record for years.

What the Theft Statute Actually Covers

Maryland’s theft statute makes it illegal to knowingly take or exercise unauthorized control over someone else’s property with the intent to deprive the owner of it.¹ Walking out of a store with unpaid merchandise is the obvious example, but the law reaches further.

Obtaining property by deception also counts, and the statutory definition of deception specifically includes removing or altering a price tag or label. Swapping a sticker to pay less is treated the same as pocketing the item.² Hiding merchandise in a bag or moving it to a different container can be used as evidence of intent even before you reach the exit.

Intent is what the prosecution has to prove. You must have acted willfully or knowingly with the aim of depriving the owner of the property, meaning keeping it permanently, keeping it long enough to lose part of its value, or demanding a reward to return it.² Genuinely forgetting an item was in your cart is a defense in theory. Proving it after store video shows you walking past the registers is a harder sell.

Criminal Penalties by Dollar Amount

Penalties step up with value. Every tier also requires you to return the property or pay the owner its value, so restitution sits on top of any jail time or fine.

Misdemeanor Levels

Under $100: up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.¹
$100 to under $1,500, first conviction: up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $500.
$100 to under $1,500, second or later conviction: up to 1 year in jail and a fine of up to $500.
Under $1,500 with four or more prior theft convictions: up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. Still a misdemeanor on paper, but the sentence length rivals many felonies.¹

The jump from a first to a second offense at the $100–$1,500 level catches people off guard: the maximum jail exposure doubles from six months to a year without the value of the merchandise changing at all.

Felony Levels

At $1,500, the charge becomes a felony:

$1,500 to under $25,000: up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.¹
$25,000 to under $100,000: up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000.
$100,000 or more: up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000.

Probation Before Judgment

Probation before judgment, usually written as PBJ, is the outcome most first-time shoplifting defendants are hoping for. The judge accepts the guilty plea or guilty finding but does not enter a formal conviction. You go on probation with conditions that can include community service, restitution, or a theft-awareness class.³

Because PBJ is not a conviction under Maryland law, it changes how you can answer background-check and licensing questions about criminal convictions. The court must find that PBJ serves both your interests and the public welfare, and you have to consent in writing.³ Theft is eligible; it is not on the statute’s exclusion list. Judges still have wide discretion, and a small-dollar first offense is a far stronger candidate than a repeat case or one involving thousands of dollars in merchandise.

The catch is that PBJ depends on completing probation. Violate the conditions and the court can revoke probation, enter the conviction, and impose the full maximum sentence for the original charge.

If Store Security Stops You

Maryland’s merchant detention statute shields store owners, employees, and agents from false imprisonment, false arrest, and defamation suits when they have probable cause to believe someone has committed theft on the premises.⁴ The protection has limits. A detention based on a hunch, profiling, or no real evidence falls outside it. So does a detention that becomes unreasonable in length or manner, such as holding someone for hours in a back room or using force beyond what is needed to prevent escape.

The Civil Demand Letter from the Store

The criminal case is between you and the state. The store has its own, separate avenue: a civil claim for damages that moves on its own track regardless of what happens in criminal court.

Maryland’s civil recovery statute lets a merchant collect three things from a shoplifter:

Return of the merchandise, or payment of the stated sales price if the goods are damaged or unrecoverable.
Actual damages beyond the merchandise, though the statute excludes the time and wages spent catching or prosecuting the shoplifter.
A civil penalty of twice the stated sales price, with a floor of $50 and a cap of $1,000.⁵

Most people encounter this through a demand letter from the retailer’s lawyer rather than an actual lawsuit; the statute requires that letter before the penalty can be collected. The letters usually arrive weeks after the incident and ask for a fixed amount. Paying is not an admission of guilt in the criminal case, and ignoring the letter does not affect the criminal charges, though the merchant can still sue.

If the Person Charged Is Under 18

A shoplifting case against someone under 18 goes into Maryland’s juvenile system rather than adult criminal court. It usually begins with an intake meeting at a Department of Juvenile Services office, where an intake officer decides whether to authorize a formal petition, pursue an informal resolution, or decline to go further. Outcomes depend on the offense, the child’s history, and the circumstances, and can run from informal supervision and community service through probation, counseling, or placement in a rehabilitative program.

A juvenile delinquency finding for theft can still affect college applications, financial aid, and later employment. Juvenile records can be expunged in Maryland, but the rules are separate from the adult process below.

Firearm and Immigration Consequences

A felony shoplifting conviction triggers the federal firearms ban. Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison from possessing firearms or ammunition.⁶ Every felony theft tier in Maryland crosses that threshold. Most misdemeanor shoplifting convictions do not, because the maximum sentences fall below a year; the exception is the habitual-offender misdemeanor for someone with four or more prior theft convictions, which carries up to five years.

For non-citizens, theft offenses are commonly classified as crimes involving moral turpitude under federal immigration law, which can make a person deportable or inadmissible. That is true even for misdemeanor shoplifting. A narrow petty-offense exception can apply when all three conditions are met: only one conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude, a maximum possible sentence of no more than one year, and an actual sentence of no more than six months.⁷ A first-time Maryland misdemeanor in the $100–$1,500 range can potentially fit, since the first-offense maximum is six months. A second misdemeanor, a felony, or any prior moral turpitude offense knocks the exception out.

Even PBJ, which is not a state-law conviction, may still be treated as a conviction for federal immigration purposes depending on the circumstances. Non-citizens should talk to an immigration attorney before entering any plea on a shoplifting charge.

Clearing the Record Later

Maryland allows expungement of both misdemeanor and felony theft under §7-104, but only after a waiting period that starts when you complete your entire sentence, including probation or supervised release.

Misdemeanor theft is specifically listed as expungeable, with a five-year wait after sentence completion.⁸ Felony theft under the same statute is also eligible, with a ten-year wait.⁹

If the case ended in a dismissal, acquittal, or nolle prosequi, the wait is three years from that disposition. The same three-year wait applies to cases on the stet docket, and you can skip the waiting period entirely by filing a general waiver releasing any tort claims against the state connected to the charge.¹⁰

One trap worth knowing: a case with multiple charges is generally treated as a unit. If one charge in the case is not yet eligible, you may not be able to expunge the others until the whole case qualifies. Expungement also clears Maryland’s public court databases but does not scrub records already captured by private background-check companies, so filing as soon as you are eligible limits how long the record keeps circulating.

1
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Criminal Law 7-104 – Theft
2
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Criminal Law 7-101 – Definitions
3
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Criminal Procedure 6-220 – Probation Before Judgment
4
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Courts and Judicial Proceedings 5-402 – Merchant Detention
5
Justia. Maryland Code Courts and Judicial Proceedings 3-1302 – Damages
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S.C. 922 – Unlawful Acts
7
U.S. Department of State. 9 FAM 302.3-2 – Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude
8
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Criminal Procedure 10-110 – Expungement of Convictions
9
Maryland Judiciary. List of Expungeable Charges Under Criminal Procedure Article 10-110
10
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Criminal Procedure 10-105 – Expungement of Non-Conviction Records